2010

Copyright Principles Project: Increasing the US Copyright Office’s Role

On September 28, a group of leading copyright academics and practitioners released the Copyright Principles Project: Directions for Reform (full report [pdf] available here). According to the press release, the Project “attempts to ignite an informed debate about how to best balance the interests of copyright owners and users” by examining “several ways to improve and update the law in an era of rapid technological change.”

The Copyright Principles Project came about in part from Samuelson’s idea of creating a “model copyright law” — akin to projects like the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code — which could provide “an inchoate vision of a ‘good’ copyright law”; “provide a platform from which to launch specific copyright reforms”; and “prove useful as a resource to courts and commentators as they try to interpret ambiguous provisions of the existing statutes” and apply the statute to novel and unforeseen circumstances.
11/1/2010